Smith v. Concordia Parish School Board, Civ. A. No. 11577.

• Decision Date: 14 January 1975
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 11577.
• Citation: 387 F. Supp. 887
• Parties: Irma J. SMITH et al., v. CONCORDIA PARISH SCHOOL BOARD et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Louisiana

387 F. Supp. 887

Irma J. SMITH et al., v. CONCORDIA PARISH SCHOOL BOARD et al.

Civ. A. No. 11577.

United States District Court, W. D. Louisiana, Monroe Division.

January 14, 1975.

Stanley A. Halpin, Jr., New Orleans, La., for plaintiff Sammy Davis, Jr.

John F. Ward, Jr., Baton Rouge, La., for defendants.

FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

DAWKINS, Senior District Judge.

This matter came before us November 20, 1974, on remand from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which by order of April 24, 1974, 493 F.2d 8, affirmed our reinstatement of black principal Sammy Davis, Jr., with full back pay from the date of his dismissal. The Court of Appeals remanded the case for "further consideration" of "possible mitigation of the back pay award." Plaintiff also has moved for attorney's fees and these matters have been consolidated.

Defendants, in a pleading styled Motion to Dismiss, have urged that the Eleventh Amendment to the United Sates Constitution is a bar to an award of back pay and attorney's fees. At the hearing the parties were allowed to introduce evidence on these issues.

Prior to the beginning of the 1970-71 school term, the Board dismissed and demoted some twenty black educators, and employed twenty-five white educators to replace them, hiring no blacks, all without development and application of objective criteria as required by earlier orders of this Court and the Fifth Circuit. Among the twenty black educators was Sammy Davis Jr. Acting upon a motion for further relief by plaintiffs, we held that the dismissals and demotions, including that of Davis, had been effected without establishment of objective criteria as required by our January 30, 1970, order. We, therefore, ordered their reinstatement. Smith v. Concordia Parish School Board, (U.S.D.C., W.D. La., C.A.No. 11,577, Order of September 3, 1970).

On appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed our reinstatement of the black educators, as well as our use of ratios as a method of preventing racial discrimination against black teachers pending development of objective criteria. Smith v. Concordia Parish School Board, 445 F.2d 285 (5th Cir., 1971). The Court further directed: "The District Court will require the Board, the plaintiffs, and the Department of Justice to submit, within fifteen days, non-discriminatory, non-racial objective criteria to cover both faculty reduction and dismissal for cause. If the parties cannot agree on such criteria, the District Court will, within thirty days thereafter, require the Board to adopt the criteria that the District Court prescribes so as to effectively comply with the provisions of Singleton." (Emphasis added.) Without having submitted to this Court the type of "objective criteria" required by the June 15, 1971, order of the Fifth Circuit, or purporting to apply any objective criteria, the Board proceeded with its dismissal of Davis and filed its proposed criteria on the same day he was dismissed, September 2, 1971.

The Board had filed what purported to be objective criteria in March, 1971, prior to the June 15, 1971, Fifth Circuit order. These criteria, coming prior to the order of the Fifth Circuit, were not responsive, did not cover the types of dismissals and demotions contemplated by that Court order, and were indistinguishable from those criteria which, in our order of September 3, 1970, we found impermissible, in that the standards fixed were too vague to be considered objective.

Defendants' March, 1971, criteria never pretended to be in compliance with the June 15, 1971, order of the Fifth Circuit, which set forth the types of dismissals for which objective criteria were to be developed, and the Board through its attorney admitted that before this Court. District Attorney W. C. Falkenheiner stated at the hearing before this Court that ". . . at the time this hearing Davis' hearing before the School Board was held, objective criteria had nothing to do with that . . .. And at the time of the hearing, we had no objective criteria." (Emphasis supplied.) This is reported in the transcript of proceedings before us and appears at p. 47 of the Appendix filed with the Court of Appeals. At a hearing before Judge Scott, of this Court, on defendants' application for a stay, Mr. Falkenheiner reiterated that at the time dismissal proceedings were brought against Davis, that ". . . we were under orders of the Fifth Circuit to produce objective criteria and, of course, no inference by the board here that it has any objective criteria. That is admitted, it had none." (5th Cir. Appendix p. 60.)

On the same day that Davis' dismissal formally was effected by the Board, September 2, 1971, it filed with us its proposed objective criteria in response to the June 15, 1971, order of the Court of Appeals. If the Board indeed believed it already had established objective criteria, it at least could have attempted to apply these to Davis, or if it believed that it had objective criteria responsive to the Court of Appeals' order, it certainly would have been unnecessary for the Board to file a new and different set of objective criteria on September 2, 1971.

Accordingly, we found that Davis was dismissed without benefit of "objective criteria" as required by earlier orders of the Court of Appeals; and that Court, by its order of April 24, 1974, explicitly found that "This tactic cannot be allowed. Even though the board complied with the Louisiana Teacher Tenure Act, it did not comply with the order of this Court."

We now find that Davis is in no way guilty of laches, nor has he in any way "sat upon his rights." To the contrary, he has been extremely diligent in asserting them. Even before his dismissal by the Board, he sought a temporary restraining order to enjoin his dismissal. We then denied the restraining order, believing at the time that the proper course of action was for Davis to pursue his administrative remedy under State law. We did not set for hearing motions for preliminary injunction, or supplemental relief, filed with the application for the TRO, because of our crowded docket, and also because two of our similar rulings, relegating dismissed teachers to their remedies under the State Teacher Tenure Law, then were on appeal to the Court of Appeals. In those two cases, Chisley v. Richland Parish School Board, 5 Cir. 448 F.2d 1251, and Cornist v. Richland Parish School Board, 5 Cir., 448 F.2d 594, that Court held that relegation to such administrative remedies was improper. Prior to the 1972-73 school term, plaintiffs filed additional motions for a TRO, supplemental relief, a preliminary injunction, and for summary judgment. A hearing was conducted September 1, 1972, resulting in our decision reinstating Davis, affirmed by the Court of Appeals by its order of April 24, 1974, 493 F.2d 8.

Accordingly, we find defendants' contention as to Davis's alleged laches in claiming attorney's fees and back pay to be without merit; and its argument that these claims should be reduced or mitigated due to lack of diligence is rejected. As shown, Davis was extremely diligent in asserting his rights.

It was stipulated that, if Davis had not been dismissed, he would have earned $10,116.67 for the 1971-72 school term; $12,000.00 for the 1972-73 term; and $13,050.25 for the 1973-74 school term, or a total of $35,166.92 for the period from the time of his dismissal to the time that he resumed his duties as principal by order of this Court.

Davis' only earnings during the period of his dismissal was payment for his attendance at meetings and road inspections in performance of his duties as an elected member of the Concordia Parish Police Jury, and a small sum of approximately $400.00 earned as a beverage distributor during one summer (when school would not have been in session). We find that Davis could have and would have earned all of this money even if he had been employed as principal during this period.

Davis' uncontroverted testimony, and factors which we also judicially notice, is to the effect that police jury meetings and road inspections for which he was...